A field trip of Professor Tom Vonder Haar's ATS737 class to Ball Aerospace in Boulder

2003

CIRA personnel visited Ball Aerospace

2003

Atmospheric Chemistry Building dedicated

2005

Professor Graeme Stephens - Distinguished Professor

2005

Center for Multi-scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes founded

2006

CloudSat launched

2006

ATS-West dedicated

2009

Department Ranked #1

2010

Department of Atmospheric Science's 50th Anniversary

2012

Professor Dave Randall - Distinguished Professor

2012

Global Precipitation Mission

2014

Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2

2014

Professor Sonia Kreidenweis - Distinguished Professor

2014

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CSU President William Morgan visited Herbert Riehl at the University of Chicago to discuss the idea of developing a sub-program in atmospheric science within the Civil Engineering Department

Herbert Riehl

Herbert Riehl arrives in Fort Collins to start program in atmospheric science
For more information on Dr. Herber Riehl's contributions to the field of atmospheric science click here to read a BAMS paper titled:
Herber Riehl: Intrepid and Enigmatic Scholar by Lew et al (2012)

The department's first graduate student, James. L Rasmussen, talks with US Senator Peter Dominick on the occasion of the dedication of the Foothills Campus Building.

Department formally established

Ph.D. program started

Outside the
CE Hydraulics Lab on the Foothills campus. In the foreground is Jerry Price, one of Lew's
co-workers, who is holding a syringe from the CSU Vet School. The syringe captured AgI particle
generated by the Naval Ordnance Test Station (China Lake, CA) pyrotechnic just lit by Jack Donnon
of the NOTS. The particles ice-crystal-nucleating abilities were tested in a deep-freezer made
cloud chamber inside the Lab (pre-Simulation Lab). The pyrotechnic was invented by Dr. Bill
Finnegan of the NOTS who joined Prof. Grant's group in the 1980's after retiring from the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake (post-NOTS).

The Grant family: Lewis, Patty, Andy, Laura, Brenda.

In 1966 CSU officially asked the Department to manage and develop the research facilities at Christman Field, just north across Laporte Avenue from the Department. (The field was Fort Collins first airport and a small exhibit with historical details is in the Fort Collins Museum). CSU had been given the field and its older hanger buildings years earlier and the Department needed facilities for instrument research in several areas as well as a place to host airborne research planes. At the time the airport also was used by an active CSU Ram Flying Club. A relatively newer facility on the site was the Department’s Atmospheric Simulation Lab being used for nucleation, dispersion and cloud chamber research. Professors Steve Cox, Tom Vonder Haar Peter Sinclair and colleagues remodeled one of the old hangers as an instrument machine shop supervised by Mr. Charles Wilkins, Senior Instrument Fabricator. Cox lead a team of scientists and engineers involved with surface, balloon-borne and aircraft measurements of solar and infrared radiation. From their base at Christman Field they participated and were co-leaders in numerous national and international field programs. Sinclair and colleagues were involved in numerous airborne research projects on severe storms and turbulence. From Christman Field, Sinclair’s Cessna 207 carried a package of instruments for airborne research, including studies of thunderstorm “outflow boundaries” by Dr. Jim Purdom (CSU, 1986) and Sinclair. Professor Vonder Haar, Cotton and others were active with the Flying Club. Many students departed Christman with Vonder Haar in his Cessna 201 Turbo for trips to research field sites (White Sands, NM; Miles City, MT; etc.) and to science meetings in Omaha, Salt Lake City, etc. A large number of students worked with instrumentation at Christman and it was used for class launches of rawinsondes and other “hands on” instrument learning.

New Atmospheric Science Building established at Foothills Campus on top of the hill

Establishment of the Colorado Climate Center with Tom McKee as the first Colorado State Climatologist

Around 1974, Colorado State University operated an F-101B aircraft as shown in this image. During its time under CSU control, the aircraft carried the civilian serial number N8234 and the nickname, ‘the Gray Ghost’. This aircraft was used to study severe storms under the direction of Professor Peter Sinclair of the Department of Atmospheric Science. During the program, it was based at the Buckley Air National Guard Base in Denver.

CSU contracted with Flight Test Research, Inc., of California who provided an experienced test pilot named Jim Lucy. Dr. Sinclair rode in the back seat running the instrumentation after selecting the storm to be penetrated. Most flights were made over northern Colorado and western Nebraska in thunderheads of 35,000 to 45,000 feet where the plane encountered high turbulence, lightning, and hail.

The plane was nicknamed "The Gray Ghost"; which became its call sign. The CSU F-101 was returned to the Air Force and is now located at the Air Museum in Topeka, Kansas.

Establishment of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

In 1982, on the occasion of the Department’s 20th Anniversary celebration, a number of leaders in Atmospheric Science in the US provided unsolicited statements and remarks congratulating the Department of Atmospheric Science for ranking among the top three in the US. They were Dr. Earl Droessler, Chief Scientist of NOAA; Dr. Eugene Bierly, Director of the NSF Atmospheric Science Division; Professor Verner Suomi from Wisconsin (an AMS Rossby Award winner); Dr. Richard Hallgren, Director of NOAA’s National Weather Service; and others. (Droessler, Bierly and Suomi all served as Presidents of the AMS and Hallgren later became its Executive Secretary. Dr. Droessler had earlier been one of the NOAA co-founders of CIRA with Professor Vonder Haar and the faculty of 1979-80). In addition, at the 20th Anniversary Dinner, Professor Peter Hobbs of the University of Washington presented Vonder Haar and the faculty with a surprise gift. It was a red and white t-shirt styled after a popular AVIS rental car commercial of the time. It was labeled in bold letters “Number 2”. This ascribed 2nd position to our Department, following, of course, the No. 1 ranked Atmospheric Science Department at Washington, widely recognized as one of the most outstanding in our field.

On October 4, 1984, the Space Shuttle Challenger was launched at dawn from Cape Kennedy carrying the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS). The ERBS principal instrument (ERBI) and 2 identical ones launched later on the NOAA-9 and NOAA-10 satellites were developed over an 8-year period by a national team of CSU/NASA/NOAA/Ball Aerospace/TRW scientists and engineers. Professor Tom Vonder Haar of the Department was the Lead Scientist along with Dr. Robert Curran and Mr. Ed Harrison of NASA, Dr. Herb Jacobowitz of NOAA and Dr. Ed Vande Noord of Ball. Ball Aerospace of Colorado built the satellite and it was launched from the Shuttle by Ms. Sally Ride, Mission Specialist, using the robotic arm. The entire Earth Radiation Budge Experiment (ERBE) was very successful with data used for climate research by thousands of scientist around the world. Instruments on ERBS collected data for more than 20 years.

Development of Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS)

CHILL NSF National Radar Facility moved to CSU (Greeley)

Expansion of Atmospheric Chemistry program with arrival of Sonia Kreidenweis and Jeff Collett

Professor Tom Vonder Haar elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Atmospheric Science-CIRA Research Center (ACRC) Building dedicated

A field trip of Professor Tom Vonder Haar's ATS737 class to Ball Aerospace in Boulder. Tom and the students are in the "semi-clean" room in which face masks,
head caps and booties were not required. The early construction of CloudSat (launched about 3 years later) is in the background of these images. The 1.7 m radar antenna
constructed at JPL and the solar panels were yet to be added.

CIRA personnel visited Ball Aerospace to see the progress in the construction of CloudSat.

Atmospheric Chemistry Building dedicated

Professor Graeme Stephens elected to CSU’s University Distinguished Professor group.

Center for Multi-scale Modeling of Atmospheric Processes (CMMAP) founded

CloudSat launched (Graeme Stephens, Director)

ATS-West dedicated

After 15 years of effort, the National Research Council has came out
with rankings of Atmospheric Science, Meteorology, and Oceanography
departments. There are many categories in the NRC data, but CSU's
Department of Atmospheric Science came out number one in a number of categories.
This ranked CSU as one of the top two colleges in the country.

The Department of Atmospheric Science is involved in the NASA and JAXA Global Precipitation Mission

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is an international network of satellites that provide the next-generation global observations of rain and snow.
Building upon the success of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), the GPM concept centers on the deployment of a “Core” satellite carrying an
advanced radar/radiometer system to measure precipitation from space and serve as a reference standard to unify precipitation measurements from a constellation of
research and operational satellites. Through improved measurements of precipitation globally, the GPM mission will help to advance our understanding of Earth's water
and energy cycle, improve forecasting of extreme events that cause natural hazards and disasters, and extend current capabilities in using accurate and timely
information of precipitation to directly benefit society.

The Department of Atmospheric Science participated in the launch of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite.

NASA successfully launched its first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide at 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. PDT) on Wednesday, July 2, 2014.
Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) is NASA’s first dedicated Earth remote sensing satellite to study atmospheric carbon dioxide from Space. OCO-2 is an exploratory
science mission designed to collect space-based global measurements of atmospheric CO2 with the precision, resolution, and coverage needed to characterize sources
and sinks (fluxes) on regional scales (=1000km). OCO-2 will also be able to quantify CO2 variability over the seasonal cycles year after year. This mission will
also validate a space-based measurement apporach and analysis concept that could be used for future systematic CO2 monitoring missions.

Anderson, Amanda Advisor: RutledgeTitle: A Comparison of Positive an dNegative Cloud-To-Ground Lightning Dominant Storm in Three Comparison of Positive and Negative Cloud-Regions of the United StatesSummerMasters